When Spammers Attack
by LancerZero
Summary: A satireor parody, not sure whichof a forum I'm a member of. In Gaia's future, three young Freya fans join others to sail to the Mist Continent to make a memorial shrine. But can they get past the Spammers on the GGG?
1. Grand Theft Museum?

**FCS Founding, Chapter one**

This is a parody/satire of a fun little message board I'm a member of.

First off: I'm a member of a board dedicated to Freya in particular and Burmecians in general. I thought it would be amusing to write a little set of stories involving the board's members, since we're such a strange little bunch. Kabra, Seratna, and Shiva/Agnes are my own characters I created to balance things out, and to serve as the outsider's perspective. The first two chapters serve as an introduction to the changed face of future Gaia, then it gets weird. Look for parallels! It's funniest if you know the board members I'm talking about, but should still make for interesting reading if you don't (a link to the website and to the message board are in my profile, since won't let me put them here)

* * *

**Sullivan City, Forgotten Continent, Gaia, 2004**

"Could you please remind me why I'm doing this?" Seratna asked as she shifted her position, trying to get comfortable in the claustrophobic backseat of her friend's '69 Gord Stallion. The backseat wasn't cramped because her friend was tall; he was only about 4'8", though muscular and very solidly built for his height. And Sera wasn't much taller than her friend; she was only about 5'6", and slimly built even for a Siamese-type demihuman. _I don't think this car was built for people to sit in the backseat at all. That, or it's just that massive tarp-covered thing taking up about half of what space there is back here.  
_

"Because they finally declared radiation levels at the old Cleyran Battlefield to be safe for most species of demihuman," the green-skinned orc-dwarf replied, absently stroking his goatee. Sera was sorely tempted to run a hand through his meticulously spiked hair in retaliation for that. He knew she'd read all there was to read on the subject – about how an eidolon had used a nuclear weapon against Cleyra, making it uninhabitable for decades afterward. And how after the war was over, thousands of Burmecians had died trying to cross the irradiated desert. Including, (or so it was believed) Freya. She'd last been seen leading a seemingly well-prepared group of some two thousand, with provisions for weeks of travel. None of them had ever been heard from again.

Instead, she answered, "That's why it's i _physically possible /i_ for us to go. I'm asking why I'm risking my scholastic reputation for this."

"Okay. One; you just graduated high school. You don't have a scholastic reputation yet. Two: because Agnes wanted you to, and she's your friend. Third: because you've always wanted to see the battlefield. Fourth: most of the other heroes of the Eidolon War already have shrines dedicated to their memory; but our favorite doesn't. Fifth-"

"Alright, alright! I get it," Sera interrupted with a sigh. "Now, where's Agnes?"

"Inside the museum."

"I know that; I saw her go in after we parked here. I mean, what's taking her so long in there? She said she just wanted to grab something. It's not like the gift shop there's ever busy."

As if on cue, a young female wolf with long unkempt hair on her head, three silver earrings in her ears, baggy pants and a black t-shirt, no shoes on her clawed feet, and a three-foot bundle in her left hand burst out of the museum's double doors.

"There she is! But why's she running?"

Kabra didn't answer; instead, he reached over and unlocked the door, managing to somehow push it open at just the right second. As Agnes jumped in, Kabra brought his overpowered coupe's massive eight-cylinder engine to life and pushed hard on the accelerator. He was a skilled enough driver to _not_ floor it from a standing start; the result was no tire squeal, but still fierce enough acceleration to shut Shiva's door.

"What's going on?" Sera squealed as she was thrown back into her seat.

Ignoring his friend for the moment, Kabra hauled the old Stallion around in a tighter curve than the cat would've thought possible, steering it down a (thankfully) empty street. "You got it?" he asked Agnes.

The she-wolf sounded less gruff than usual when she answered, "And I don't think they even saw me. Of course, it's retracted, so it's only half its normal size . . ."

"Get what?" Sera demanded. "Who didn't see you?"

"In a minute, Ser. You want the 71 west onramp, Kab."

"Got it."

Seratna forced herself to restrain the urge to ask again; she knew her two friends well enough to know that if she hadn't gotten an answer by now, no amount of badgering would get it out of them. Instead, she decided to calm down and think a bit, to analyze the situation and try to reason out what "Shiva" might have and why she'd been running. She finally reached a tentative conclusion.

"Agnes, what'd you steal?"

As Sera was asking, Agnes reached over and turned the radio on and up. Ironically enough, the text display on Kabra's MP3 stereo deck proclaimed the title of the song to be "Metallica - Of Wolf and Man (S&M version)". Completely ignoring Sera, Agnes (who preferred to be called "Shiva" in mixed company) immediately started headbanging. Kabra joined her, and was by some miracle able to keep the car on the road while doing so.

_I can't believe it. She **stole** something from the Eidolon War Museum, and Kabra's inattentive driving's going to kill us before we can even get arrested . . ._ Kabra and Agnes had allowed themselves to forget that the normally mild-mannered Seratna had a temper that would have made her distant domestic feline relatives proud. "What in the HELL did you steal, Agnes? And turn down that damn music before I start crossing wires back here! I WILL short your amp, Kabra!" To show she meant business, the cat reached back for the wires leading from the subwoofer to the amp . . .

"Okay! Geez, Sera, can't you take a little joke?" Kabra wondered aloud as he turned the stereo down.

"Not when it involves us squealing away from the museum like the thieves we are!"

Shiva sighed. "Fine. I took her triblade, okay?"

"_WHAT?_"

"Well, if we're going to make a little monument we should have at least i _something_ /iof hers on it, don't you think?

"Yeah, I guess so . . . but that doesn't justify _stealing_ it!"

"Oh c'mon, Sera. It's not like it's serving some higher purpose by getting dusty in that museum. It's sat there for decades; don't you think that if she were here, she'd rather it be near where she fell?"

Sera stewed on that for a while before sighing and asking, "How far is it to the docks again?"

"Like you don't have the numbers memorized," Kabra deadpanned. "It'll be a few minutes. The road there ought to be pretty deserted - and that means we can take the curves as fast as my baby can handle!"

"Ha!" Shiva scoffed. "Bet this rattletrap can't even take a fifteen-degree curve without rolling and sliding."

"I've been working the engine and suspension for months. How much you willin' to put on the table, Miss Fang?"

"I'm broke and you know it, ya green-skinned Neanderthal."

"Figures . . . Here we are . . . the exit to the docks." Kabra exited smoothly, but had to slam on the brakes as soon as he rounded the first bend; for there, hidden from the highway by trees, was a roadblock. Or nearly a roadblock; the police cruiser and military hovertank that sat on the asphalt had barely enough room between them for a car to pass. "Crap." As they neared the almost-a-roadblock, a human police officer got out of the cruiser and approached them, motioning for Kabra to roll down his window.

"Good afternoon, kids. Where you headed?"

"The docks," Kabra supplied. "We're, uh, making a documentary. Hey, Sera, get that camera out . . ."

The officer chuckled. "A documentary, eh? Well, be careful – that sea monster that attacked last month caused a lot of damage. The roads are passable, but they can be dangerous if you're not careful."

"We know, sir – that's what we're documenting. 'Course we'll be careful," the half-orc assured. "Wouldn't want my baby to get any scratches, now." The officer waved them through, and Kabra rolled his window back up as he accelerated gently away, wiping nonexistent sweat from his brow. As soon as he lost sight of the roadblock around the next bend, he floored it.

" Anyway, I really did bring my camera, you know, and plenty of extra battery packs and memory cards. I recorded that little exchange, and I'll be recording a lot of this."

"You're not really thinking of making a documentary on this, are you?" Shiva asked.

"Sure. Why not? 'The Founding of the Shrine'. I'll just have to get permission to use the spear after the fact, I guess . . . and pray no one presses charges."

"That's the spirit," the wolf replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Just as Kabra had said, just a few nausea-inducing minutes later, they were at the docks. "Sorry, ladies . . . guess I need to do some more work on the suspension," Kabra sheepishly admitted, while Sera clutched her head and Shiva held her own head out the window.

"Is it over?" Sera asked.

"Yeah, we're there."

Shiva got out of the car, looking about as she stretched. "So, which floating wreck are we on?" And her words weren't far from the truth – most of the vessels that i _were _/i still afloat seemed ready to sink. Their berthing lines groaned and creaked in time with the swells in the harbor, and one could imagine them asking to be put out of their misery.

The docks themselves didn't look much better. The sea monster, though none had actually seen it (it attacked at night, during a rainstorm, of course), had toppled gantries, leveled warehouses, tossed ships against (and onto) rock jetties, and wrought general havoc throughout the area. The condition of the ships could, in some cases, be blamed on the monster's attack; in other cases, it was simply age or neglect.

Sera crawled out from behind Shiva's seat, joints audibly cracking as she stretched. "Kabra, next time, we're bringing i _my _/i car, which has an actual back seat. That, or you sit in the back."

"You have no sense of adventure . . ." the orc grumbled to himself as he extracted himself from the driver's seat. Shiva shouldered the triblade and hefted the package that'd been in the backseat, Sera got her rifle out of the trunk, and Kabra kissed his beloved car good-bye. "I'll come back for you!" he promised the machine, and Sera rolled her slit-irised eyes.

In spite of his professed sorrow, however, Kabra started whistling to himself as he rummaged through the trunk. Shouldering two enormous black duffel bags, he shut the trunk with his broad chin.

Sera's eyes widened a bit. "What's in those?"

"My survival kit," was all Kabra was willing to say.

"You got mine, too?" Shiva asked.

"Yup. Sera, where we going again?"

The cat pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from her shirt pocket, carefully opened it, and squinted. "I think it says, 'pier 51'. We just parked next to 47, so it shouldn't be far. The way they've got them numbered, we need to go . . . that way." She pointed to the right, and everyone looked.

And saw nothing that looked big enough to make it all the way to the Mist Continent. They looked at each other, shrugged, and started walking. It didn't take long; the side of the harbor they were on contained only odd-numbered piers, so 51 was only two down from 47. What they found was somewhat less than they'd been expecting. A single assault landing hovercraft – the old-fashioned airskirt-and-propellor kind, not the new antigrav type – awaited them.


	2. We're going in THAT?

Note: I'm going to be the main RoER character in here, not because I'm the biggest presence here – far from it! – but because I know myself better than I know anyone else, I think, and I don't want to risk upsetting anyone by taking too many liberties with the behavior of their character. Okies? And I'd just like to let everyone know that it's REALLY WEIRD to write about a persona based on yourself in the third-person. Very strange. Anyway, enjoy!

Brief character intro:

Dan: 21 year-old English dude, friendly and with way too much free time.

SITF: 17 year-old American from California, a poet, salad chef, and car nut.

Jana: 16 year-old Croatian; SITF's actual fiancee, and a talented artist and musician.

LZ (me): a 22 year-old American dude in Virginia, a systems administration major, a writer, amateur artist, and car nut.

* * *

**FCS Founding, Chapter two**

"An old LCAC?" Sera groaned. "That's it?"

"Looks like it," Shiva answered, using her ill-gotten triblade to point at the blue stenciled 'RoER' symbol emblazoned on the side.

"Hey Shiva, that guy we've been in contact with – he i_did/i _say he was a crewmember on an actual _oceangoing_ vessel, didn't he?" Kabra asked.

"Yeah."

"So, where is he? Or are we supposed to pilot this thing ourselves?"

"I'm sure he's here . . . **Hey! Anybody in there?**" Shiva yelled at the landing craft. Sera cringed, holding a hand to her sensitive ears. Shortly afterward, a head could be seen sticking out of the battered little glass bridge. Not long after that, a jovial, curly-haired nezumi was bounding down the craft's loading ramp to greet them.

"Ah, you must be Kabra, Agnes, and Seratna! Welcome!" He ran up to them and was about to shake their hands, but Sera was the only one with a free hand - so he just shook hers. "I'm Burmecian Soldier Dan, just 'Dan' for short, and let me be the first to welcome you to our little task force!"

"Task Force?" Sera asked, trying not to sound disdainful.

"Well, it's two ships, so it's not quite a fleet, is it? C'mon now, let's get going! The vehicles should be here any second!"

"Eh?"

"You have cars, right? It'd be easier just to load 'em on here. Not many roads where we're going, but there will be some."

Kabra grinned, dropped his load, and ran back towards his car.

"No," Sera corrected, "I mean . . . two ships? Where?"

"Oh!" Dan laughed. "That! No safe berths here, anymore – too much rubble underwater. It's not safe for any ship worthy of the name. They're moored offshore! Sorry about that."

"What sort are they?"

"An old amphibious assault ship, and a mothballed frigate for escort."

"Hm . . . could be worse. How old are they?"

"Uh . . . let's just put it this way: they've been safely crossing the seas at least as long as the Captain has been alive."

"Okay, and how old is the Captain?" Dan started fidgeting, looking for the 'vehicles' to arrive. "How old is he?"

"Uh, mid thirties. But the ships are in great shape, and hardly any leaks!"

"Ugh . . . shouldn't have expected otherwise."

"Beggars can't be choosers," Shiva reminded. "And there weren't a whole lot of ships heading our way."

"Actually, there were, but they were all booked. Seems we're not the only ones interested in establishing memorials over there."

"Yeah, a cruise liner full of Zidane and Garnet fans left just this morning," Dan added. "Ah ha! Here they come."

Sera looked back down the road leading to the city, and gasped, "Is that my car?"

"Mm-hm."

"Who's driving it, and ihow/i and iwhy/i"

"Is it just me, or is that my beater pickup behind your wagon?" Agnes murmured to Sera as she squinted into the sun, holding a hand to her brow to shield her eyes.

"That's right! Since you didn't know one of our ships could carry cars, we didn't think you'd each bring one. So, two of our crewmembers went out to get them for you! Is that good service, or what?"

Sera's mouth opened, then closed again. Shiva seemed similarly affected, and simply stared at the oncoming vehicles, which were soon joined by Kabra's muscle car. Dan walked over to the ramp, waving the vehicles onboard one by one.

Agnes and Sera each stalked over to their respective vehicles (leaving Kabra to go back for the duffels he'd left) to meet the drivers, and hopefully to come up with some sort of witty, biting rejoinder about how they shouldn't have done it. Unfortunately nothing came to mind for either of them and they ended up just standing there in awkward silence, waiting for the drivers to get out.

The driver of the pickup was the first to exit. Tall, lanky, and with glasses, darkish blonde hair and a moustache/goatee to match, he didn't give Shiva a chance to be mad. "You know your air conditioning's broke, right?"

"You think this stinkin' thick fur coat ever lets me forget? I'm Shiva."

He nodded in greeting as he shut the door. "I'm Sir Irontail Fratley. Well, not really, but . . . long story." He waved a hand in dismissal. "You can call me Mike. And my fiancee, Jana, is manning the 40mm anti-air gun next to the ramp. You'll probably meet her before we get to the ship. Unless you'd like to meet her now . . . ?" The glint in his eyes made it obvious that he'd like to introduce his wife-to-be, who couldn't quite be seen behind the guns.

"Sure, why not?"

In the meantime, the driver of Sera's all-wheel-drive Nubaru Limpreza wagon was all grins as he got out. Sera was about to interrogate the nezumi with the dark spiked hair and goatee about being careful with her baby, but then she noticed how he shut the door. He kept his hand on the door all the way to the point that the latch engaged, and pushed it shut with the main part of the door rather than the window frame. And he used just enough force to shut it. i_No one does that, unless they're as borderline-obsessive about being gentle with a car as I am./i _

He must've noticed her checking out her car, though, because he said, "You can check the tires, too – no extra wear on the sidewalls from bumping against curbs or sliding around corners." She raised a questioning eyebrow at him. "Well, I've always wanted to drive one of these, even if it's less than new . . . I treat every car as though it were my own. And I treat mine well. So, I treated yours well." She looked through the window, trying to see if there were any wires dangling beneath the steering wheel. "Oh, I didn't hotwire it – I just used the spare key you have in that magnetic box behind your bumper!"

"What? How could you have possibly known about that?"

"Because I have a spare key in about the same spot on my car. I'm known as Lancer Zero," he indicated a poorly drawn numeral '0' on his shirt, "But you can just keep calling me LZ. It's shorter."

"Ah! So you're the one we were in contact with . . . please tell me the ship we're going to isn't a rusted-over coffin with a cargo hold?"

"Heh – it's not."

At the same time, Dan was helping Kabra get his stuff back into the trunk (boot) of his car. "Gah! What do you have in these things?"

"I like to keep the corpses of my victims with me. Seriously, it's just my little survival kit. You'll see later."

"If you say so . . . alright, seems we're ready to go. Is your parking brake on?"

"No. Why?"

"We don't have any wheel chocks, and I don't want your car to bump the loading ramp into the water while we're moving, if you don't mind." As Kabra hurried to set the brake, Dan pushed the button that was supposed to raise the ramp. Key word: isupposed/i to. Instead, the hydraulic arms shuddered, then fell silent. Dan pushed the button again; but to no avail. "Oh, dammit . . . Mike! LZ!"

They looked, and knew immediately what was happening. The ramp hydraulics had been a constant problem, and it usually took all three of them to turn the winch that served as backup. But before they could get to the winch, Kabra did. "Nevermind, I've got it." With nary a grunt, he raised the ramp. The three crew raised their eyebrows, and got back to their respective jobs. Dan double-checked that everything was secure, Mike joined Jana up front to keep an eye out for any potential hazards, and LZ got behind the controls.

* * *

_It's only fair,_ LZ reminded himself. _Mike generally flies the tilt-rotor – when it's flyable, that is – so I drive the hovercraft. Besides, he'd probably rather be with Jana in the cupola than steering this beast_. The elderly assault craft's engines spun up with a roar, the inflated air skirt quickly raising it up off the dirt lot next to the pier. _Not bad for a piece of equipment that's half again as old as I am . . ._ He was gingerly turning the LCAC around, barely nudging the controls, when a knock on the door made him jump. The hovercraft jumped, too – right towards the pier instead of the ramp he'd been guiding it to. 

Fortunately, the pier had nothing on it – except for a fifteen-foot drop at the end of it. LZ reversed the pitch of the propellers, but it was too late. He didn't even have time to brace himself – the impact slammed him to the deck with all the subtlety of a giant's fist. The person who'd knocked and startled the erstwhile pilot fell through the door, landing next to him with about the same amount of subtlety. It was Sera. LZ was about to say she should try knocking next time, but she _had_ knocked.

"Sorry," was all she said. "I get seasick if I don't have a view."


	3. Liquid Meat and Exploding Cans

Note: Parallels abound! Anyway, here it is, thought up and typed in just over two hours:

But first, the obligatory character intro:

Wilson: 22 year-old American physics major, optics guy, and writer.

Declan: 19 year-old (or is he 20 now?) Englishman, artist, web developer, and guy who harbors a severe distaste for 1337 and chat acronyms. (I don't hate, I just like to poke fun)

* * *

**FCS Founding, Chapter three**

It turned out that no one was hurt, and the hovercraft didn't run into anything in the time it took for LZ to get up and back to the controls. Amazingly enough, the cars seemed to have survived the fall intact. Things became awkward in the hovercraft's control structure as LZ slowly navigated between wrecks; often, Mike's upraised hand was the only thing that alerted him to the presence of a barely-visible hazard. Though it seemed to be much longer, it was actually less than seven minutes before the LCAC was on the open ocean.

"Mmm . . . where are the ships?" Sera ventured, seeing no vessel but their own.

"You've heard of the GGG, right?"

"The Gaian Global Grid? Only in theory."

"So, what do you know about it?"

"Back at the end of the Eidolon War," Sera began in the manner of one giving a presentation, "Though a total disaster was averted, the cataclysm that was to transform Gaia into Terra was actually interrupted rather than prevented. And though most Gaians don't notice it, there is a plane on this planet parallel to our own, and in which – or so the theory goes – a miniature society exists. Were it possible to get 'on the Grid,' so to speak, one would become effectively ethereal, and unable to affect events in the plane we inhabit. Theoretically."

LZ chortled. "It's not just theoretical anymore! Both of our ships are on the Grid, probably not more than a few kilometers from us." Sera cocked an ear and raised a skeptical eyebrow, which her acquaintance didn't see because he was concentrating on the controls. "The theories are mostly true; but while on the Grid, we float on water just like we otherwise would, and we can't move through Gaia itself for some reason. But what we can do is be impervious to the beasts of the seas, foul weather, and the like. And we can get to the Mist Continent in a few days instead of a few weeks. Oh, and you don't have to worry about explaining this to your friends; that's what Dan was just down there doing."

"You do understand that I don't really believe much of what you just said, right? I mean no offense, but this vessel isn't exactly the sort of thing that a group with the technology you claim to have would be caught dead in."

"Ah, but we iwon't/i be caught dead!" LZ proclaimed, as though that made all the difference in the world. "There are some things to be aware of on the GGG, though, so I'm glad you brought your rifle." He smacked a small, unremarkable button near the control column, bringing a klaxon and a spinning red light mounted outside to life. "In a few seconds, I'll be creating a bubble around this vessel and bumping us onto the Grid. It may be a bit disorienting at first, but you'll get used to the transition after experiencing it a few dozen times."

_Why do I always get mixed up with these kinds of people?_ Seratna wondered to herself. _This guy probably belongs in a padded room somewhere . . . why didn't he mention this to me in any of our conversations, if any of it's true?_

"Oh, and I would've mentioned it to you earlier, but you'd have thought I was crazy and tried to cross the sea in a dinghy, or in the hold of a big cargo freighter full of stinky things. Don't worry. Hold on . . ." As his voice trailed off, the world seemed to start spinning on multiple axes. Sera tried to grab onto something to steady herself, but only succeeded in grabbing her own tail and yanking her own ass out from under her.

"YOWCH!" Before she could think of any creative curses, the sky darkened to a deep purple criss-crossed with the black cloud-like filaments that gave the Grid its name. Forgetting the pain in her ass for the moment, Sera didn't even notice that LZ was helping to steady her as she stood up. _Incredible ._ . . When she looked back towards the shore, though it was still the same distance away, she could barely see it at all. Soon, she lost sight of it completely. The sea was no longer a deep blue, but had lightened to a sickly grey, the sort of color one might imagine a zombie's skin to be. There was no longer one sun, but many; hundreds of small stars covered the sky, providing only slightly more light than a set of full moons.

"Some people think that each of those stars belongs to a planet that was once Terra's," LZ quietly remarked, breaking Sera's trance. "It's something you never get tired of seeing . . . everyone's wowed their first time in. Oh, damn!"

"What?" A thundering chatter erupted from the gun mount, with the accompanying flashes.

"It's an ambush! Look behind us!"

Sera did, and gasped. Not even a hundred yards behind them cruised three of the most ramshackle-looking vessels she had ever seen. Yet, somehow, they were gaining. She thought she could just make out a crude battery of cannon mounted on the bow of each, manned by cloaked figures. "Who are they? What do they want?"

"Spammers, we call them. They try to inundate you with scrap metal shot you don't need, to slow you down to the point that they can catch you and do what they like . . . fortunately, we've never let them get quite that far before." As Sera watched, the cannon fired – their projectiles spread out shotgun-style, peppering the sea next to the LCAC. "That was a pop-up, trying to get our attention. If we don't do what they want, they'll start firing directly at us."

"What can we do?"

"You and your friends can arm yourselves. Jana's a good shot, but she can only shoot at the one trying to flank us – she shoots at either of the others, she risks hitting our props! All we have to do is keep them occupied long enough to reach our ships."

"How am I supposed to hit anything vital with this thing bucking beneath me?"

"Then you can tell me when they're about to fire!"

* * *

Meanwhile, on the deck below, things were even more hectic. It was virtually impossible for anyone to make themselves heard over both the roar of the LCAC's turbine engines _and_ the steady chattering of Jana's machine guns. Kabra got the idea that there was something to shoot at, however, and grabbed his "survival kit". Shiva took hers as well, and together they got into the bed of Shiva's pickup truck. Dan didn't seem to be paying much attention to them, as he was hauling a large tube labeled "SPAM BLOCKER" from the deckhouse.

Kabra and Shiva each shouldered a tube from their respective "survival packs", and fired. Shiva's tube was a simple wire-guided missile launcher, and her aim would have been perfect – had it not been for the spammers' first real shot, which severed the guidance wires in a freak coincidence. The missile went wild, creating a nice plume of water behind the spammer ships.

Kabra's was less simple, but more straightforward. It was a cannon, plain and simple. An absurdly powerful energy weapon built to be carried in the turret of an infantry carrier, Kabra had somehow modified it to be portable Though it couldn't sustain fire for long without melting the barrel or running out of juice, it was still quite formidable. There was a thunderous roar from the superheated air surrounding the energy bolt rushing back to fill the vacuum the projectile left in its wake, and the funnel of a spammer's ship exploded. They were about to fire again when the old LCAC jinked right, tossing them out of the pickup and allowing the vessel to narrowly dodge another spread of spammer's shot.

Dan, however, had his large tube ready – it was angled upward, resting on the rear loading ramp. He closed his eyes, and pressed a button on the top of the device. A trio of canisters shot out in a spread, bursting in midair. The fireworks they created were eerily beautiful against the dark sky as they fell in a curtain of light behind the LCAC. Loud _thump_s could be heard coming from behind the curtain, and Dan grinned. The two spammers that had been behind them were nowhere to be seen, stuck behind the curtain of light. By the time they maneuvered around it, the LCAC would be long gone.

That still left one spammer, though – a fact brought to their attention by the continued chatter of Jana's guns. Though peppered with holes, the spammer was still going, and the cloaked figures were still loading their crude cannon with shot. Just before they fired again, LZ threw the rudders hard to port and cut the port engine to idle, throwing the hovercraft in as hard a turn as it could handle. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Jana and Mike both ducked as the craft's structure was peppered with shot. A panel of cockpit glass shattered, a loud hissing sound commenced from the starboard side airskirt, and the starboard propeller started to sound as though it would tear the entire vessel apart.

Jana started firing again, Shiva and Kabra reloaded their weapons, and Dan started preparing his tube for another use. LZ immediately cut power to the starboard prop, increased power to the port prop, and held the rudder to port to compensate. But the air leaking from the armored airskirt combined with the chewed-up propeller to slow them down considerably, and it was obvious that at least one spammer would catch them. It would take only one more salvo – Jana's machine guns had shredded the funnel and part of the spammer ship's superstructure, but the guns were simply too small to damage the hull itself, and the spam gunners were too difficult to hit with a heavy machine gun.

A sound similar to Kabra's cannon erupted from the LCAC's cockpit, and a the top quarter of a gunner flew to pieces. Sera had gotten a lucky shot – her next only hit air, and another gunner took the place of the one she'd sent to the next life.

It was over. The LCAC was too badly damaged to maneuver, the RoER was steaming towards them but was still too far away, and the other two spammer ships were now back on track. One more good shot from the cannon battery would be enough to damage the hovercraft to the point that it would barely even be able to stay aloft. They were so close now that Sera could see the ship's name: _teh r0x0rZ_. Then, they all saw the light appear at the end of the tunnel . . . or rather, they saw a light suspended in the sky suddenly veer towards them.

Sera was the first to know what it was, thanks to the scope on her rifle: a tilt-rotor, with "RoER" stenciled in foot-tall letters on its side! The craft carried two large pods, one beneath each wing; the tip of each began to glow, and the spammer's bridge began to smoke. Shortly after, it glowed, and was melted to slag. As the tilt-rotor approached, it lowered its loading ramp and disgorged a large metal object which immediately turned, spouted flames out of its rear, and shot directly towards the spammer's ship.

Even over the roar of the LCAC's sole remaining propeller, the crew would later swear they heard someone bellow, "I do NOT tolerate spammers within the exclusion zone!" The metal object became discernable as a dragon robot just before it crashed right through the hole in the superstructure the tilt-rotor's lasers had created. All eyes were on the ship as it began to shudder violently, as though being destroyed from within. Dark smoke and sparks began to pour from its pock-marked funnel, and a groan like that of a dying animal issued forth from the hull. The entire ship actually ipulled into itself/i, just before it disintegrated in a violent but well-contained explosion. When the smoke cleared, there was a single, tired-looking nezumi floating alone in the water where the spammer's ship had been.

The tilt-rotor loitered nearby until Mike tossed him a life ring and pulled him close enough that he could clamber over the airskirt. After he dried off a bit, he would introduce himself as Declan. "I hate spammers," was all he'd say when asked how he'd found them so quickly. "I can _smell_ them, you know. They leave a stench of rotten eggs and week-old sushi in my nostrils. Very distinctive. And you'll be thanking Wilson for flying that laser-armed tilt-rotor here, though I won't be thanking him for not plucking me out of that bloody cold water."

* * *

Anyway, since there are so many of us now, what I'm going to do is try to concentrate on a different group each chapter, so everyone gets some "page time", so to speak. And please remember, this is very rough – I thought and typed the whole thing up in just over two hours after a long day, so I know there must be things that need correcting! Please don't hesitate to point them out to me, and thanks for reading! 


	4. YARRR

Lots of new characters! Lots of new info!

Jedau Sagsun: I think he's 19, he's an American student from the Deep South who appears reliably and without warning most nights; his main contribution is wit and conversation.

Nivalis Capistrum: The board and site administrator; termed by some as The Worst Administrator Ever, but they're full of crap anyway. I'm the second oldest on the board, and he's the oldest. A writer who also has a account.

Mel: Boisterous British 14 year-old (known on as Freyarule); writer, artist, and obsessed with AJ.

AJ: 15 year-old Canadian detail nut who is also obsessed with Mel.

Robshi: 16 yearl-old wee English lad (kidding, Rob!); writer and occasional artist. He has an account here on and is the only reliable reviewer of my stories. I made him faceless because none of us on the board knows what he looks like.

Eudemic: An 18 year-old American who lives on a sailboat and is going to enter the merchant marine.

Saddam: Bears no resemblance to Hussein. He's an American, though I don't know his age or much else about him.

Br: I forget how old he is or where he's from, but he's an artist and animator. Thus, his specialty in necromancy! Get it? RE-animation? Ha ha!

Allen Clearwater: 16 (or is it 17?) Canadian guy who writes sometimes, considers himself a Star Wars guru, and does some web developing. Is co-admin of the RoER's companion RPG site, FFIXR.

**FCS Founding, Chapter Four**

_Meanwhile, on the bridge of the RoER . . . _

Things were not going quite so well. The captain (who bore a passing resemblance to a Burmecian Freddy Mercury, with a moustache) was short several crew members, and would soon be facing a Spammer fleet of unprecedented size and unknown intentions. "Jedau," he began . . . but the scruffy nezumi was nowhere to be seen. "Jedau?"

"I'm right here, Boss," Jedau announced - from his chair in the middle of the room. He had a habit of escaping notice, and appearing when least expected. And of startling everyone wherever he did finally appear.

After everyone in the room jumped about three feet straight up, the Captain continued. "Would you play the Spammer's message again?"

"Coming up, Niv . . ." Jedau pressed a completely innocuous button on his console, and the raspy, altered voice of T3# m4D 1337 sP4Mz0r issued forth from the bulkhead-mounted speakers.

"ur prolly al liek lol wut r teh spamzorz due to uss but lemme tel yuo – U R GUNNA PAY!1111 come 2 tha darkside u kno u wan2!"

"Damn!" Nivalis spat. "Who can understand that gibberish?"

"Um, I have a friend who speaks it . . ." ventured a normally boisterous young nezumi with long, wavy hair the approximate color of kiwi fruit skin.

"It's okay, Mel," AJ assured her, patting her arm. "We all know that you once practiced the Dark Arts of spamming . . ."

"Did not! It was Lotti – and she repented, remember?"

"Can you translate it?" the captain interrupted.

"Yeah. They think we're underestimating them, and are threatening to make us pay if we don't do as they ask." Everyone gasped, and the stench of urine wrinkled more than one nose. "Sparky!" Mel chastised, and the ship's dog trotted away to finish his business elsewhere.

"Are Wilson and Declan back yet?"

"No," Robshi mysteriously answered from the shadows.

"Eudemic, are there any weird maelstroms nearby?"

"If you're thinking of us luring them into one, you can forget it. They aren't stupid, just maddeningly annoying."

"That wasn't what I was thinking of. I thought Willy Wonka's Wacky Whirlpool was somewhere nearby."

Eudemic opened his mouth to say it wasn't, but something he noticed while glancing at his charts made him do a double-take. "Actually, it is! But what good does it do us?"

"No idea! Have a lot of ships gotten sucked in there?"

"Yeah."

"Perfect." He outlined his plan; which was, quite naturally, completely insane.

"Nivalis, you're completely insane," Eudemic reaffirmed.

"I know! Isn't it great? Contact the _FFIXR_ and let them know what's happening. With any luck, they'll cover us."

"Oh, shoot!" Allen exclaimed. "I have to get back over there!" He dashed from the room, presumably to commandeer one of the _RoER_'s numerous launches (a launch being a small boat, for those not of a nautical inclination).

"Hey, Cap!" Sagsun the Jedau called out. "Seems the LCAC ran into a little trouble. Three Spammer corvettes. Declan apparently demolished one, but the other two are in pursuit and the LCAC is damaged. Wilson said he would've gone back for another attack run, but that tilt-rotor's about as consistent as a bowlful of soggy Cheerios on a hot day."

"Not much we can do about that at the moment, except to put my plan in motion! Saddam, Robshi, go forth; Eudemic, you've got the ship 'till I get back; Mel and AJ, come topside with me."

* * *

_Meanwhile, on board the LCAC. . . _

Before Sera had finished picking the broken glass out of her fuzz, the two remaining Spammer corvettes had closed to within spamming distance. The precise moment they came within range was obvious, since the small radar display was suddenly proclaiming that LZ could win a FREE iPOD NANO if he could only move the cursor and shoot the poorly animated monochrome Brahne moving across it.

Shiva launched another missile, this time scoring a hit on the same corvette that Kabra had blasted earlier. Her missile homed in on the Spam Generator, its five-pound frag warhead blasting the mast-mounted generator into oblivion. The distinctive iboom-screech/i of Kabra's cannon echoed across the LCAC's deck, and a geyser of steam erupted from the water a few yards away from the damaged Spammer vessel. Mike hurriedly traded Jana's overheated dual 12.7mm machine guns for the spare 40mm grenade launcher, and Dan struggled to reload the unwieldy Spam Blocker.

Unfortunately, Declan couldn't turn back into the Magma Dragoon again quite yet, and there were no spare weapons. There wasn't even a chunk of metal that he could transform into a weapon, so he helped Dan with the Spam Blocker.

* * *

_Meanwhile, on board the RoER . . ._

The ship's cavernous hold, designed to hold as many as four LCACs, had been subdivided into work and practice areas since it had been acquired by Nivalis some years earlier. Robshi hurried into the darkest subdivision, paying no mind to the lack of illumination . . . for he was a shadowy figure, himself. Through narrow, bone-strewn corridors he ran, paying no heed to the warnings of abnormally large spiders and floating skulls.

"Yer soul is forfeit if ye dare advance beyond this doorway," warned a zombie pirate stationed in the final corridor of the subdivision. "An' I'll carve yer face like a jack-o-lantern, besides!" Growling menacingly, he held his rusty cutlass up to bar Rob's passage.

In reply, Robshi pulled back his hood with gloved hands to reveal . . . nothing. There was a misty blackness where his face would be, and two glowing eyes at approximately the correct location. "I have no face," he explained to the pirate, "And if you try to take my soul, I will get angry. You won't like me when I'm angry. I turn into a crazy hybrid who eats dead people when I get angry." _Well, it's mostly the truth _. . . Rob thought to himself. The zombie pirate apparently sensed enough truth in that statement (staring at the Faceless One, naturally), since he stepped aside and lowered his sword.

Rob simply grunted and said, "That's better."

When the door was opened, a slice of Darkness was revealed - for the main room of the Shadow Subdivision was a necromancer's paradise. Mounds of dirt barely concealed dozens of coffins, and a sarcophagus took up most of one corner. Books were stacked inside of one empty coffin, and in the middle of a chalked-in symbol on the floor stood another faceless Burmecian. This one, however, had eyes that glowed a somehow chilling green, and before him danced a skeleton that moved in time with the motion of the necromancer's own glowing hands.

"Hey, Br," Robshi called out to the figure.

"Yeeessss?" the dark wizard replied, his voice as toneless and eerie as a cold December breeze whistling through an open crypt.

"The Boss wants you topside."

"Juuusst onnne moooment . . . I must finish animating these old bones . . ."

"Alright." Robshi turned to leave, but stopped himself short of the door. "Hey, you're still making cupcakes tonight, right?"

"Oof cooorrpse. Ha, ha. Seriously, though, I'm making cupcakes. The kind with those little pink frosting roses on top, and strawberry pieces inside."

"Yay!" Robshi danced a happy little jig with the zombie pirate before continuing back to the bridge.

* * *

So, whaddya think? Will our intrepid heroes survive the coming onslaught, OR WILL THEY ALL PERISH IN UNFATHOMABLE AGONY? Tune in next time!

:b

For the curious, the sort of vessel I imagine the RoER to be is a Whidbey Island-class amphibious assault ship. G00gle it, and thou shalt see.


End file.
